Maybe it’s time I join the Republican Party.  Conservative friends have been telling me the best way to influence policy is to join the mix, making for a stronger conservative recipe.  I’ve had so many libertarian tendencies I’ve never considered myself a conservative and never a Republican but I’m disturbed by some trends.  First, Michael Steele, the GOP’s affirmative action hire doesn’t appear to be setting the faithful afire.  You can just see the party insiders hatching the plot.  “We’ll get one too”, they must have been thinking.  They market like TV executives poorly imitating the latest fad.  Steele is a bright guy but I’m not sure that he believes in anything but Michael Steele’s career.  How then can he lead? 

The Steele influence is now permeating my home state of Delaware.  Wednesday afternoon the Republican minority mailed a letter to the Democrat savior, Governor Jack Markell.  The Republicans second his plan to raise taxes on people earning more than 60 thousand dollars a year.  Now they wish as well to raise the income tax on those earning less than 60 thousand dollars a year.  On a working public already girding for a new carbon tax and the forced conversion to an expensive automobile fleet I guess we can always sacrifice groceries and make ends meet.  There are fewer than 900,000 people crowded into this tiny but beautiful state.  There are almost 35,000 state workers. 

Let’s consider 300,000 people aren’t of voting age.  This would mean there are 565,000 (please check my arithmetic, it’s a bit late after a long day) people of voting age who aren’t state workers.  The Democrats, as the majority party, court the vote of this minority.  Do Republicans expect to gain in next year’s elections by becoming the party of yes? 

We already have a party of yes.  The majority party hasn’t been able to say no for 75 years.  In television marketing we used to talk about “points of difference”.  In politics an example of this would be the Contract with America.  This was just 15 years ago.  It worked, even if customer service after the sale failed. 

I’ve got a great many friends within the state Republican Party but only a few polite acquaintances in the Wilmington area where the state GOP hierarchy long ago put aside the short and simple word no.  No is the sound of tough love.  Over the last two years I’ve seen the good folks of Sussex exercise the 2 letter word, whether Republican or Democrat.  Now the yes disease is permeating what appeared the last bulwark of no.  I guess some folks have been invited to play golf with Eddie Rendell and Arlen Specter.  I know I’d sell my soul for quite an opportunity.  Look up the word facetious.  And for the geographically challenged Delaware isn’t just a Pennsylvania county. 

The current political system is unsustainable.  The rewards will follow those who refuse to get on the bandwagon.  Like all Americans, Delawareans need choices.  State and federal governments have no revenue coming in and are leveraged to the hilt.  Don’t accept the invitation to climb aboard a sinking ship.  The response is no.  Two letters and one syllable.  It’s economical. 

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